Intimacy and how it is affected by our Body Type: June (oral) and Dave (psychopath)

Attraction

As an oral type June feels under-nourished and unconsciously looks to the outside world to satisfy and stimulate her and to provide capabilities she feels she lacks. As a psychopath Dave both feels himself to have something that other people want, and feels it is dangerous to be vulnerable to someone trying to get that; he feels that as a violation. Dave’s deepest fear is being used. To prevent this violation he has created an image of himself of someone powerful – and the person most fooled by this image is Dave himself. To prevent being used, he contrives to be on top in every interaction. At work he is in charge, socially he is a charismatic centre of attention.

June is attracted by Dave’s charisma and aura of success. She is drawn to the flashy, sparking scene he creates around himself, and wants to be part of it. She is in awe of his knowledge and the way he seems to understand her. His quality of power and competence makes her feel safe and she is charmed and impressed by his popularity among women.

Dave is charmed and touched by June’s adoration of him. He is very pleased by the way she tunes into him, tries to give him what he wants, makes him feel special (this reinforces his sense of his own specialness), proves that he is right, and needs him. He is attracted by her long legs, slim and girlish looks and her softness and vulnerability.

Difficulties

After some time together June finds herself getting obsessively jealous of Dave’s constant flirtations. She feels terribly hurt by the way he seems to judge and criticise her. And she begins to detect the scared person behind the facade, a person she cannot reach, a person he never shows. The things she is getting come from the bogus image and so don’t satisfy her. She tries to reach a more real part of Dave but being real brings down his image and is exactly what threatens him most. This makes her more and more desperate and hopeless.

Dave gets very irritated by June’s dependency and the way she seems to rely on him for everything. He feels she is holding him back and hanging on to him, and what seemed at first to be an attractive, surrendering, feminine woman, looks more like a constant hidden demand of attention to him. He feels triggered and gets the feeling of just being used to fulfil someone else’s need. This is Dave’s nightmare, and he fights her off by showing coldness.

Transformation

When June doesn’t get what she needs she is thrown back to herself and begins to realise that she is depending on people outside of her. She sees that many things in life she has to do unsupported, and begins to discover that she has the strength to do that. With this new strength she decides to separate from Dave.

For the first time Dave meets a challenge to how he sees himself and begins to experience his vulnerability. To his surprise, though painful, the vulnerable feelings also access a depth of feeling and a relaxation that he hasn’t known before. He begins to realise that his charismatic way of relating has in fact been keeping him away from an intimacy that he hasn’t previously known existed.